PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 133 



■With Kentucky blue grass? If I cannot find out -without less trouble I 

 would send a sod of it to Kentucky. Furze>top or Rhode Island bent seed, 

 I am told by dealers, is usually gathered from old meadows and pastures, 

 and sells for twice the price of red-top, if of good quality. I have an acre 

 of it in lawn, sown a year ago, which appears, except for its want of age, 

 like the best sandy roadside turf wherever I travel in New England. 



Sweet Corn. 



We are eating a kind of sweet corn so very excellent that I feel ashamed 

 of myself that I don't save it all for seed and send it to the Farmer's Club 

 for distribution. It may be more common than I think, and may be readily 

 recognized from the reddish purple of tlie entire plant with the exception 

 of the cob and kernel, which are of the whitest. It has small, eight-rowed 

 ears, often three upon a stalk, needs especially generous culture, for which 

 reason it will not find favor with market gardeners, or with consumers, 

 who must have a bulky dozen for their money. As plain boiled corn it is 

 delicious. 



How TO Make a Strawberry Bed. 



I dislike very much the weeding of strawberries, so I clean my ground 

 before planting, if possible, and have a patch now in hand for fruiting in 

 1866. It was a solid meadow sod, plowed July 4th, since which it has 

 been harrowed with Share's coulter harrow nine times, to the 12th of Sep- 

 tember. The ground was infested with Canada thistle, dog-grass, and 

 another grass about as hard to kill as either, which appears equally at 

 home upon the dryest and wettest land if it be but rich enough. These 

 weeds are not dead yet, but they are all weaker. I keep that harrow on 

 the ground, and whenever the team has a spare hour the land gets a 

 thorough cultivation. I expect to plant next spring upon clean ground. I 

 have enjoj'cd reading in the Tribune the accounts of the mischief in all 

 parts of the country done by insects — though those that come from the 

 West are almost too tragical — for the fact is that next to drouth, worms 

 and bugs are my chief misery. My farming grows more wormy and buggy 

 every year. I shouldn't like to confess as much to m}' neighbors (among 

 whom I get the sobriquet of "old compost,") bat I don't mind telling you 

 that my secret and growing belief is that thoroughly prepared farm com- 

 posts are perfect breeding places of the insects which destroy vegetables. 

 And to make matters worse, I give so clean cultivation that there is 

 nothing but the young plants for insects to live upon! 



It is the unanimous desire of the Club that Mr. Olcott will send some of 

 his corn for distribution next Spring. Direct to J. W.Chambers, Secretary 

 American Institute Farmer's Club. Such practical letters as this are very 

 interesting, not only when read to the members, but will be perused wi-th 

 pleasure by all who read the reports. 



Grapes in Iowa. 



Mr. Jacob Hare, Canaan, Iowa, says : — " That notwithstanding I live on 

 the prairie, where there is not an acre of natural timber in the township, 1 

 succeed iu growing grapes of the following varieties : Catawba, Isabella, 



